


The Most Talented Man in Hockey

by petersnotkingyet



Series: Love is Blind (and so is Kenny) [11]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anxiety, Blind Character, Blind!Kent, Communication, Disabled Character, Healthy Relationships, M/M, Stimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-17 20:09:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13084452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petersnotkingyet/pseuds/petersnotkingyet
Summary: "Kenny," Alexei said carefully.  "I'm having a question, okay?"Kent and Alexei talk about Kent's relationship with hockey.  Set earlier in their relationship than other stories in the series.





	The Most Talented Man in Hockey

“Kenny,” Alexei said carefully.  On the tabletop, his fingers were tracing along Kent’s knuckles.  As far as Kent could tell, Alexei was very tactile with all his friends, but no one more so than Kent.  “I’m having a question, okay?”

“Yeah, go for it,” Kent said.  He sounded calm, but he slipped the hand Alexei wasn’t holding off the table and into his lap to tap out a quick _1-2-3 1-2-2 1-2- 1-2-2_ on his knee.  The movement was discreet but grounding.  Alexei understood that he stimmed and didn’t seem bothered by it, but Kent didn’t want to embarrass him by rocking in a restaurant.

“Is it bother you to be around so much hockey with me?  Because you were having to quit?” Alexei asked.  Tension drained from Kent, but he kept tapping out the rhythm on his leg.

“Maybe a little at first,” Kent said.  “If we’d met when I was eighteen or nineteen, I don’t think I would have handled it as well, but I’m fine now.  I love hockey.”

“It was unfair that you were having to quit,” Alexei said.

“Yeah,” Kent agreed.  “I was good.”

“Very good,” Alexei said.  “I’m find documentary you were in online last night.  The beginning made me sad.”

“Yeah, they had a good hook,” Kent said, clearing his throat.  As a teenager, he’d been one of a handful of people in a documentary about the lack of opportunities for disabled athletes.  They had used footage from one of his games against Jack in the segment on Kent.  He hadn’t been able to make himself listen to it again after Jack’s overdose, but he still remembered the opening line.

_The most talented man in hockey is seventeen years old, and he will be leaving the ice forever this fall._

Of course, ‘forever’ was a little overdramatic.  Kent skated for fun in college, and he was hopeful that someday he’d live in a city with a blind hockey team again.  He still went to the rink with Swoops and the guys for some shinny when they had time.  But he hadn’t competed since he was eighteen.  After he went to college, his skating became a quirk rather than a gift.  There was no point to it anymore.

When Jack was young, lots of people had come to see him play.  While many fans of sighted teams didn’t come when they played a blind team—they either didn’t consider it a real game or were uncomfortable with the concept—the Nightshade still had a larger turnout when they played against Zimmermann.  Those games against Jack were when people outside of the blind hockey community started to realize that Kent was _good._

Good, as in unrealistically good.  Most people with his degree of blindness were goalies so they didn’t have to orient themselves around the ice and other players.  But for Kent, hockey and skating clicked in a way the rest of the world never had.  It hadn’t come easy, but Kent was crazy about it.  By the time he hit his double digits, there was no difference between Kent and the average sighted player.  By his teen years, he was better.

When Kent was sixteen, his younger sister compiled a video of some of his best moments on the ice.  His mom put it online, and Bob Zimmermann tweeted it.  Kent was briefly viral, and that was how the documentary makers found him.  When the film came out his senior year, Kent had a short period of celebrity before he was off to college to be ‘the blind guy.’

“Most blind skaters don’t get on the ice until they’re older,” Kent said.  “My mom started taking me when I was three.  That was when my dad left, and I guess she needed to reassure me and herself that I was going to be able to do stuff.  I think the first two years nearly scared her to death, but there were some guys at the rink who convinced her to keep bringing me.”

“I’m glad you were getting to play for longer than most,” Alexei said.

“Yeah,” Kent said.  He paused, chewing his lip thoughtfully while the tapping fingers on his knee picked up in tempo.  “I gotta be honest though.  A lot of the issues I had with hockey aren’t because I had to quit.  That was hard, but I knew it was coming.  I had time to prepare myself.  There was…. There was something else that happened.”

“You’re not having to tell me,” Alexei said gently.  His thumb traced the inside of Kent’s wrist, and Kent shivered.  “Is okay.”

“I want to tell you,” Kent said.  “I just want to make sure I say it right.”

“Okay,” Alexei said.  “Have a minute.  Eat.”

Kent’s food was mostly gone, but he had a few bites left.  Alexei had finished his, so Kent slid his plate to the middle of the table for him to pick at the fries.  They ate quietly for a few minutes before Kent spoke again.

“When I was a teenager, there was this guy,” Kent said, fidgeting with his fork. 

There had been some rumors about him and Jack when they were young, but Alexei still lived in Russia then.  His Google search on Kent would have had to be incredibly thorough for him to find anything about Kent Parson and Jack Zimmermann beyond an unlikely friendship.  If Kent was vague, Alexei probably wouldn’t connect the story to Jack.  There was a strong likelihood that Jack might still go to the NHL, so Kent didn’t want to out him to someone he might play against.

 “We didn’t communicate well.  Or at all I guess.  He was going into the NHL, so the whole relationship was a big secret.  I think our parents suspected, but no one knew.  We just didn’t ever really talk about it, so I didn’t realize that it meant something different for him.  To him, we were just friends who fucked.  And I was—”

“In love?” Alexei said.  Kent swallowed hard and nodded.

“Yeah,” he said.  “I was in love.  I think he knew that, but he had a lot going on and it was easier for him to just pretend he didn’t.”

“He made hockey painful for you?” Alexei asked.

“There was an accident, and he almost died,” Kent said.  “I was the one who found him.  We got him to a hospital in time and he recovered, but—” Kent shrugged, “he wouldn’t see me.  Didn’t text me back all summer.  I went off to college still obsessing over him.  I don’t know why I kept texting him.  He almost never responded.  And when he did, it was worse than no response at all.”

“That is horrible,” Alexei said softly.  He squeezed the hand that he’d been holding the whole time.

“I’m doing better than I was then,” Kent said.  “He is too, but we still don’t talk.  He did a lot that hurt, but I could have done better by him too.  We were both just kids.”

“And you’re still loving hockey now?” Alexei asked.

“Yeah, of course,” Kent said.  “I go skate at least once a week.”

“So you would be liking if I’m bringing you to Falconers game sometime?” Alexei said.

“Lexei, I’d love to come to one of your games,” Kent said, surprising them both with the familiarity of the nickname.  “To be totally honest, I’ve been wondering why we don’t talk hockey more considering you’re a professional athlete and you know I played.”

“I wasn’t wanting to make things hard for you,” Alexei said.

“Free tickets to a Falconers game would be the opposite of making things hard,” Kent promised.

“Good,” Alexei said.  Kent could hear him smiling.  There was a warm, gooey feeling in his chest that Kent hadn’t felt in a long time.  “I’ll be inviting you sometime.”

“Sometime?” Kent laughed.

“Mhm.”

“Gotta whip the boys into shape before you can bring me?” Kent asked.

“Something like that,” Alexei said.  “They were liking you when you came to dinner.  Next day, everyone was, ‘Alexei, where have you been hiding him?’ ‘Alexei, you should be bringing Kenny to family skates.’ ‘Alexei, you are lucky Kenny cannot actually see you.’”

“I’m glad they like me,” Kent said, laughing again.  “And I don’t have to see you to know you’re handsome.  There’s too many tumblrs about you.”

“Don’t be tumblring me,” Alexei said.  “You will be thinking I’m leaving you for Snowy.”

“You do talk about him a lot,” Kent teased.  Alexei played along, and Kent could feel his arm move as he shrugged.

“I’m love Snowy,” Alexei said.  “Not how I’m loving you, but still.”

Kent froze.  “You love me?”

“Of course, Kenny,” Alexei said.  “Hey, you’re okay?”

“Yeah,” Kent said.  He forced himself to unfreeze and found a soft smile on his face.  “I’m good, Lexei.  Real good.”

**Author's Note:**

> I took some creative liberties with blind hockey in this series. I wanted to maintain the competitive origin of Kent and Jack's relationship within the AU.  
> Also, I've gotten a couple reviews that are kind of hypercritical of this series and some of my other writing. I do my research and want my stories to be as accurate as possible, but at the end of the day the writer is 17 and this is fanfiction. I do my best with my writing, but not everything is going to be perfect.


End file.
